


hardly know her

by lotts (LottieAnna)



Category: Big Time Rush (TV)
Genre: Crossdressing, Gender Confusion, Gender things, Multi, Other, Prom, implied pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 22:28:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16962654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LottieAnna/pseuds/lotts
Summary: It’s the prom, is the thing, and now Camille is in a suit and James is in a dress, and Logan’s starting to think he was wrong before, about not being confused.





	hardly know her

**Author's Note:**

> i don't own big time rush! this is a fanwork! 
> 
> takes place during s2e19 "big time prom kings" and BOY is this a mess! idk i just am rewatching this show and i'm trans and this happened. no one beta'd this. i barely proofread. these are raw unedited gender feelings here. some internalized homophobia too. he's a guy who is thinking about gender and doesn't really have the language to, so some of his thoughts might read as shortsighted and have transphobic undertones, even though his opinions aren't actually negative.

Look, Logan’s not confused, or anything.

Well, he is, but that’s just because he’s 16. Everyone’s confused about everything at 16. It’s a confusing age, and Logan doesn’t know much about developmental psychology, but he’s pretty sure that someone who does could point him in the direction of some science to back up that statement. Also, there’s the anecdotal evidence from Logan’s life: he knows many 16-year-olds, and they’re all confused about everything, all the time.

Logan’s never been substantially more confused than the other people in his life, though. He’s usually not in any rush to figure things out, when it comes to feelings crap; he understands, better than most other teenagers, that some things just don’t make sense. He’s 16, and everyone around him is beautiful, and that’s just gonna regularly make his brain short-circuit. Whatever.

But then there are some things that are confusing, and it bothers him, like—

Well. Camille, for one.

And then there’s James.

And then there’s…

Uh. Dresses?

 

Okay, so there’s a lot of stuff.

 

Teen boys do things, okay? They do things with girls, and they also sometimes do things with other guys, and sometimes those are the same kinds of things, but they pretend like they aren’t, and— maybe Logan’s just numb to nonsense, but he can follow the logic of it all, at least. The things that happen between two guys on the same hockey team are different because everyone treats them differently. When James does stuff with girls, he tells everyone about it in great detail, but when he and Kendall disappear for a few hours only to reemerge with Kendall looking vaguely smug and James looking very flustered— that’s something no one’s allowed to talk about.

Because it’s different when you’re both guys.

And maybe it’s different because now Kendall has Jo, and Jo is under the impression that she and Kendall are each other’s first… everything. Which isn’t true by any stretch of the imagination. Logan has, on a few unfortunate occasions, overheard the things Kendall and James used to get up to, usually when he was pretending to be asleep. Kendall and James seem to know that Logan knows something, seem to know that Carlos knows too, but the probably don’t know that Logan’s heard them talking about it amongst themselves.

Again, it’s the talking that’s off-limits, and Logan knows this because he’s heard Kendall—and James, but mostly Kendall—say that they shouldn’t tell people. Not that people shouldn’t know, just that they shouldn’t tell, and that difference probably means something, Logan thinks.

But that’s very much none of Logan’s business, the same way a lot of things that Logan thinks about aren’t any of his business.

Like the fact that Carlos and James both accused each other of shaving their legs, and Logan’s been dying to figure out if that’s true and what that would feel like to touch. Y’know. The kind of weird impulse that Logan prefers to keep locked far, far away. Leg touching is… intimate, when it’s purposeful, so Logan shouldn’t ask about it.

 

Logan also thinks a little too much about whether or not he looks good in a dress.

It’s because he’s gone undercover as a woman, and it’s worked, and he wants to know if he looks good as a woman, when he’s a woman. Like, when people look at girl-Logan, do they see someone _trying_ to look like a woman? Someone wearing a dress that doesn’t quite fit but is clearly trying, so everyone says she looks good? Or does Logan’s boy-cuteness translate to girl-prettiness? Is she too tall? Is she tall, but in a good way? Does she do the shoulder thing right? Because she knows girls have this different kind of walk, but they also carry themselves differently when they’re not moving, and she’s pretty sure it starts at the shoulders.

Or— oh.

Logan doesn’t usually think of himself as a girl. It only happens when he’s thinking about himself as a girl.

He’s been a guy his whole life, and he’s comfortable with it, but there’s a part of him that’s also comfortable with it when he’s dressed as a girl, and when he’s dressed as a girl, he likes to think that he _is_ a girl, because—

Well, because he can. Because it’s fun.

Because, like, why not?

Camille does it, with her acting stuff. She has about six personalities on any given day, so Logan has to assume that she’s been a boy for at least a couple hours of her life. They should compare notes, maybe.

 

It’s the prom, is the thing, and now Camille is in a suit and James is in a dress, and Logan’s starting to think he was wrong before, about not being confused.

He’s _very_ confused.

Camille looks like she’s drowning in fabric, and Logan assumes that’s the reason she doesn’t like the outfit. Other than the fit, she really pulls off the look, and, like, no other girl is wearing a suit here. She stands out, now. Logan thinks she should win prom queen for that alone.

“I should probably go apologize to my date,” she says, looking in the mirror, and Logan’s pretty sure she’s already forgotten his name. Sweet. “For, y’know, turning into a dude halfway through prom.”

“That’s something you should apologize for?” Logan says, and Camille laughs at that after a beat, like she’s surprised by the joke.

“You’re right. Maybe he’ll be fine with it,” Camille says, and then she leans forward and presses a kiss to Logan’s cheek. “I’m gonna go find him, though. See you later?”

Logan can’t help it; he puts a palm to his cheek, grinning a little dumb. “Sure thing,” he says, and she gives him That Smile of hers as she walks out of the bathroom.

She doesn’t look like a dude, Logan thinks, not when you get up close to see the careful makeup on her face or the way her hair falls in expert curls. That’s the kind of thing Logan gets jealous of, when he’s dressed as a woman.

“So,” James says, abruptly reminding Logan of the very hard-to-ignore presence of his male best friend in a dress. “You two back on?”

“Good question,” Logan says with a shrug. Honestly, he’s never more than 90% sure where he and Camille stand, and that 90% is rare. Most days, it's a solid 35%. “Think she’s got a shot at Prom King?”

“Better than mine,” James says, frowning in the mirror before he fixes his lipstick. Logan’s not really sure why James is bothering with lipstick, but Logan is... not complaining.

James in a dress and lipstick doesn’t look as much like a woman as Logan does, because he’s not really trying— Logan’s, like, 99% sure it’s the shoulders thing.

“I’d rather that than queen,” Logan says.

“And better her than Kendall.”

It was a really low move of Kendall to want it only because James said he wanted it, Logan thinks. It was also really low of him to tell James to his face that he’d win because of Jo. It’s low of Kendall to keep telling Jo that he only snuck her out because he wanted to beat James. It’s just— this isn’t Kendall’s finest moment, really. There was a reason Logan rallied behind James, even though Kendall and Jo were kind of a lock.

There’s a pretty decent chance James has more reasons for wanting Prom King than he’s letting on, but Logan has more reasons for wanting James to be Prom King than he’s letting on, so that probably makes them about even.

“We should get out of here,” Logan says, staring a little bit at the way James smacks his lips in the mirror.

“What, embarrassed to be seen with me?” James bats his eyelashes. “Am I not pretty enough for you?”

It’s a joke, probably.

Logan doesn’t find it very funny.

In fact, instead of mustering even a pretend laugh, Logan just turns bright red, feeling very caught. James apparently realizes that Logan’s not reacting the way he expected him to, because he blinks once, and then his face changes, shifts into something mischievous.

Logan suddenly— he gets it. He understands. His knees are weak, and his face is hot, and James is just so _tall,_ and that dress is showing Logan parts of James he’s never seen before. His chest looks amazing, and Logan knows that low-cut dresses are girl-sexy, not guy-sexy, but this is just— it’s James-sexy. It’s sexy in a way that’s different, a little awkward, less showy than James’ usual brand of sexiness. It’s hard to look at, hard to wrap his head around all the ways that James in a dress makes sense and doesn’t make sense, and how the parts that don’t make sense still make a weird kind of sense.

James takes a step towards him, accidentally graceful, and suddenly, Logan sees a girl, tall and wide and stunning. She looks a little like a supermodel, and Logan wants to kneel on the floor for her right now and just— do whatever she wants, which may be a dirty thought, but again, Logan’s sixteen, he’s got no idea what thoughts are dirty, isn’t even sure if that thought is about sex stuff or not. He really doesn’t know anything.

Then, he blinks, and James is a guy again, but a guy in a dress, and he’s still just, like, _so_ tall.

“You think I look good,” James says, his voice low and fucking _tantalizing._

“I…” Logan’s voice trails off. His mouth is dry, all of a sudden.

“You’re so weird, oh my god,” James says, and it stings, but Logan’s pretty sure James doesn’t mean for it to be negative. “Okay, is it because you just like me enough that you want me as a chick, or is it because this is your ex girlfriend’s dress?”

Logan doesn’t know how to answer that, because he _does_ like James a lot, just never like that, before, and because James is only a woman for a few seconds at a time before Logan’s brain reconfigures him into something else. Logan’s not quite sure what a woman or a man even is, or what he’s supposed to find attractive about them; all he knows is that James looks really good and is wielding so much fucking power over him, right now.

He goes back and forth so effortlessly that Logan wonders if that’s a _thing_ for him, the ability to be something totally different at the drop of a hat, because that’s definitely a common thread. He also wonders if this is like that time he got that swagger app and James got sick; Logan certainly _feels_ sick. Maybe this is James stealing something from him, this time, except when Logan’s a woman, he knows he’s a _woman._

James is just— really great at being something in between, Logan thinks.  

“I think the color suits you,” Logan says lamely, and James looks like he’s about to either laugh at Logan until he shrinks into the ground, or eat him alive.

He does neither.

James just presses this— awful, awesome kiss to his mouth, because apparently people only ever kiss Logan when they know they can catch him off guard. It’s short and firm and powerful, this stupid fucking promise, and Logan feels very much toyed with, but he can’t— like, it’s not like he can tell James to stop, because James is acting like this is a game, and Logan doesn’t want to ruin their fun. Because Logan _is_ enjoying this, even though his heart is beating dangerously fast and recklessly hard. He enjoys the terror of it.

James and Camille might be the exact same person. Logan should either avoid them at all costs, or marry both of them.

“You never did get a date to prom, did you,” James says, pulling away, and his lipstick is very barely smeared.

Which is just— unbelievable.

“I guess not,” Logan says.

James tilts his head to one side, looks a Logan for a second, and then he shrugs.

Logan has no clue what he’s reacting to.

**Author's Note:**

> idk man. logan's a person. he likes people. he's gonna do a LOT of reading up on this stuff someday. 
> 
> it was fun to write a story about a smart person grappling with the inherent shortcomings of his own conceptualization of gender, what can i say. 
> 
> this is a flawed story about a flawed character with flaws! lmk if there are any warnings i should add.


End file.
